Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (13 page)

Robin studied Ralph’s emotionless face. “Did he receive her?”

“He did.”

That was startling. “What did she and my father speak about?”

“I was not privy to the conversation.”

“Well, then,” Robin said, “perhaps I should go and ask the same question of someone who was.”

“Wait!” Robin turned back as Ralph clutched at his sleeve. “Wait, Robin. He truly is ill—”

“I’ve seen that.”

“—and like to die.” Anxiety, unmasked, now carved lines in Ralph’s face. “No matter what he does now against John, he will be dead before he could be charged with treason and executed.”

“What has this to do with Marian?”

“A personal plea,” Ralph said in desperation, “from me, if you would grant it. Please, my lord, let this go. If you must know, could you not ask your lady? It was she who came here. She who precipitated the conversation. Ask
her.”

After a moment Robin nodded. “Very well. But I think I shall speak to him nonetheless about the guests he is expecting, and their business.”

“My lord,” Ralph said, releasing the sleeve with alacrity, “that is your decision.”

Robin was unmollified. “It is somewhat encouraging that you allow me at least one.”

A wave of color flooded the steward’s face. “My lord—”

Robin turned to go, already planning what he would say to his father.

“There is one possibility, my lord.” Ralph’s voice was very quiet. “One solution that may save him from what you consider lunacy.”

Robin swung back sharply. “What is it?”

The steward said, “Be his son again. In every way. Then it will matter to him what you think. He may even listen.”

“ ‘May,’ ” Robin echoed pointedly.

“He is a stubborn man, the earl—”

“In all the ways you may count!”

“—and his son equally stubborn.” Ralph’s voice firmed out of servitude into opinion. “But if they could be made to work together, instead of against one another, no one in England—neither sheriffs nor princes—could defeat them.”

Robin stared at him, then expelled a sharp laugh. “My God, Ralph, but you do serve him in all things! He has well and truly tamed you.”

“It is the truth.”

“As
you
see it.”

“It is the truth.”

“Set myself beneath his roof again so I may
possibly
alter his plans?” Robin shook his head. “He will merely use the time to attempt to alter mine.”

“Well,” Ralph said, “I have already said you are as stubborn as he. I doubt it would be any easier for him to make you believe as you feel you cannot than for you to make
him
do so.”

“Then it would be no more than a waste of time.”

“He has little left,” Ralph declared curtly. “He should do well to waste it in his son’s company.”

Robin opened his mouth to answer with equal curtness, and then realized there
was
no answer.

Not yet. Possibly never.

“Excuse me, my lord.” Ralph was servant again. “I must tend to the larders.”

As the steward slipped by him, Robin shut his eyes and shook his head in slow, steady denial.

There were many ways to win a battle. There were fewer ways to win a war. But he felt without a doubt that his father, through Ralph, had found one of them.

William deLacey swung down from his horse, tossed the reins in the general direction of the hurrying horseboy, and climbed the steps to the hall door. His pounding was eventually answered by a woman he recognized as having seen a time or two with Marian, though he did not know her name.

“Robert of Locksley,” he said brusquely.

She shook her head. “Sir Robert isn’t here, my lord sheriff. He’s gone to Huntington.”

“Has
he?” Sarcasm was heavy; he knew as everyone did that the earl and his son were not on speaking terms. “Then I’ll see your lady.” Locksley was preferable—it was he and his companions the sheriff suspected—but Marian would do for an initial salvo.

“I’m sorry, but she—”

He halted her in midspeech with a raised hand. So, they wished to play games. He struck a pose of overly dramatic surprise. “What, is she not here also? Has
she
gone to Huntington?” Marian was less likely to visit the earl than his son. “Hold your tongue, woman—” As she began to protest: “I shall see for myself.” He pushed past her, setting her aside rudely.

“My lord! My lord sheriff!” She grabbed for his sleeve and missed. “Please—my lady is hurt—”

“Is she? Sad news indeed.” He strode through the hall he had not been invited into for five years. “What has befallen her, I wonder?”

The woman hastened after him. “She is resting—”

“Abed, is she?” He paused at the bottom of the stairs. “And would she be alone? Or is Locksley there with her?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but climbed the stairs steadily with a heavy tread. The woman pursued; he ignored her entreaties. “Locksley! Marian!” he shouted. “Roust yourselves . . . you have company—”

DeLacey broke off and stopped short at the head of the stairs before the narrow door, but only because a man stood in his way: a fat and frowning monk swathed equally in the plain black robes of the Benedictine brotherhood and severe disapproval.

“My lord sheriff,” Tuck said in tones of rebuke, “the Lady Marian is resting. She is not to be disturbed.”

“Hurt, is she?” DeLacey offered the monk a smooth smile. “Ah, well, by now I don’t doubt she is bored and longing for company. Let me not tarry, and I’ll relieve her of tedium.”

He was certain he had found Robert of Locksley, or that the room was empty. But when he realized he could not get by Tuck short of shoving him over the edge of the landing to the rush-strewn floor below—thereby possibly killing him, which would not recommend him as a particularly effective sheriff no matter how tempting—he resorted to something perhaps a trifle more subtle but no less impressive.

He drew his sword with a hiss of steel. “Stand aside, Brother, or you’ll be making your confession before God within the hour.”

Tuck was astonished. “Lord sheriff! Such behavior is outrageous!”

“Stand aside,” deLacey repeated.

Tuck hesitated, and the sheriff took the opportunity to set a hip against the man. It served to buy him room; he pushed by, jerked aside the latch, and stepped across the threshold with his blade raised. He slammed the door shut, latched it, and leaned against it; short of breaking it down, which deLacey believed Tuck would not attempt, no one could enter.

He looked at the bed, grinning, and froze. “My God—”

She was slow to wake, fumbling upright against propped pillows. He saw the mass of braided hair with tendrils loosened around her face, the pallor of her skin, the slow blink of heavy lids across blue eyes gone to black.

She lifted a hand to push hair out of her face, and winced. He saw then it was bandaged; heard the hiss of pain as she jerked the hand away from her head.

This was not a mummer’s dance. He had seen sickness before, and injury, and the effects of poppy syrup.

She recognized him, he saw. Color was slow to bloom, but it did. She was fully and modestly clothed beneath the bed linens, but jerked at the coverlet nonetheless.

DeLacey eventually remembered to lower his blade, though he did not sheathe it. “Well,” he said. “Shall I inquire as to whether your appearance is due to the services of your paramour?—ah, no?” Her anger was slow because of the drug’s effects, but it arrived eventually. “No, I see not. Injury, is it?”

Marian said, in distracted annoyance, “The wolf is
in
my door.” It astonished him. “Wolf?”

But she merely scowled and offered no answer.

Drugged half insensible, he was likely to get little coherency out of her. But William deLacey also realized he could nonetheless gather up enough odd bits of information that, pieced together, might provide him with some answers.

Two strides, and he was at her bedside. Steel shone dully in muted light as he bent over her. “Lady,” he said, “why did Locksley and the others accost a royal messenger on the road?”

She frowned owlishly up at him.

“Why did Locksley and the others detain a royal messenger?”

There came banging at the door, and raised voices. The woman and Tuck, both calling for him to come out, to let them in, to leave the lady alone. He ignored all suggestions, all orders.

“Why?” he repeated.

“Pardoned,” she murmured.

“For now,” he agreed. “But not irrevocably. Not if they have taken to outlawry again. Not if they are accosting royal messengers on business of the king, certainly!”

She blinked up at him. “Dead.”

“The king? Yes. So I have been given to understand. But the news arrived considerably later than it should have.” He sheathed his sword and bent closer to her, altering his question. “Where are they? Where is Robin Hood? Where is the Hathersage Giant? Where is that murdering villein Will Scarlet, the simpleton cutpurse, and, in particular,
where is the man who violated my daughter?”

Marian drew in a deep, unsteady breath, then expelled it. She managed at last to knit enough words together to form two coherent, if lackluster, sentences. “He did no such thing. Ask Eleanor.”

He had asked Eleanor. He knew very well Alan of the Dales had not forced his daughter; more likely, she had forced him, though deLacey doubted the minstrel had been unwilling. But it remained his task as father first and sheriff second to arrest and punish the man regardless of the truth. “Where is he?”

Marian smiled drowsily. “Gone.”

“And the others?”

The smile broadened.
“Not
gone.”

The door behind deLacey burst open, torn off its hinges. He turned, expecting Tuck; found himself faced instead with a very large, very angry John Naylor of Hathersage, now known as Little John of Ravenskeep. DeLacey took a single step backward and fetched up against the bed.

“What d’ye think you’re doing?” the giant roared.

DeLacey had asked where they were, knowing it very likely all were already in hiding. But two of them were here: Tuck, and Little John. This was not what he had expected.

The woman squeezed in beside Little John and went directly to Marian, planting her body between his and the bed as she murmured indignant asides regarding lord high sheriffs who had no courtesy and even less right to burst in upon people inside their own homes.

DeLacey set his teeth. There was nothing left for it but to stand his ground and brazen it out. He scowled at the big man. “Why did you detain a royal messenger?”

Little John clearly had no idea what he was talking about, or had in the intervening years become an expert mummer. There was no flicker of recognition in his eyes, nor of guilt. “What royal messenger? We haven’t
detained
any royal messenger. Why would we?”

It wasn’t a lie, not insofar as the former Hathersage Giant knew. But that did not mean the others were innocent. “Where is Locksley?”

“Huntington.”

“Huntington,” he repeated, imbuing it with elaborate tones of doubt.

“Aye, Huntington,” Little John repeated. “His father’s ill, aye?”

Indeed, the sheriff had seen that for himself. And it
was
possible father and son might reconcile in the face of ill health. It occurred to deLacey that if they did so, things would likely become much harder for him. Best to find evidence of misbehavior as soon as possible, so he would have a weapon. Earl’s son or no, Robert of Locksley could end up out of royal favor if deLacey presented proof. “Did he and Will Scarlet—and that whoreson minstrel!—stop the messenger on the road?”

“What
road?
What
messenger?” Little John drew breath to shout. “And
what are you doing
in the lady’s bedchamber?”

Immensely frustrated, the sheriff wanted to say, “Making a fool of myself.” But not before them. “I am seeking Robert of Locksley. Last I knew, he shared the lady’s bedchamber.” He raised one elegant brow. “Or have things changed? Is that why he’s gone back to his father?”

The huge man pointed at the door. “Get out.”

DeLacey cast a glance at the bed’s inhabitant. She was tousled, heavy-lidded, and still flushed from the outrage of his presence. For one moment he felt a stab of intense jealousy—she might have been his, once—then buried it beneath an icy self-control. “When Locksley comes back,” he said, “send him to me.”

Little John was astonished. “D’ye think he’ll come because
you
ask for it?”

“He may come of his own accord—or he may not, in which case I shall send soldiers. I am empowered to do so. I am empowered to do anything I believe necessary to maintain the peace of the shire, including ordering sons of earls to attend me in Nottingham.”He smiled with sweet implication. “I should think it would be easier, and far less embarrassing, if he rode in himself, rather than being
brought
in.” DeLacey stepped to the door as Little John moved aside, then turned back quickly to Marian to rap out a final question when she least expected it. “How did you know the king was dead?”

She seemed puzzled that he should need to ask. “Messenger.”

Indeed. Messenger. There it was: the truth. He blessed the poppy syrup even as fury thinned his tone. “I’ll have him,”he promised. “Huntington’s son or no, Crusader knight or no, the Lionheart’s boy or no, I’ll have Robin Hood. I’ll have you all.”

Marian’s woman turned a furious face to him. “Get
out.”

He was unattended by soldiers in a room hosting the man who was likely the largest in all of England. This time deLacey got out.

 

The earl had taken himself from bed for the first time in three days. He felt weak because of it, nearly enfeebled, and was angered to see how his limbs shook as he stood up. He wore an overrobe in addition to bedclothes, but pulled the pelt coverlet off the bed to add another layer against the chill. He got as far as the table with its wealth of parchment, inkpot, and quills, and sat down heavily in the chair. He could hear his breath moving noisily through aching lungs.

He supposed they believed him dying. Ralph had been moving about quietly with a peculiarly bland expression for the last several days, and Robert himself had looked more than a little shocked to see his condition. But Huntington knew better. So long as there were duties to tend and a realm to have the ordering of in lieu of a proper king, he would not die. But he had no compunction regarding allowing Robert to
believe
he might die; that, too, was a weapon, and Huntington disdained few.

The earls of Alnwick, Essex, and Hereford would be here in a matter of days. Until that time, he had opportunity to reconsider what he would propose. But he knew very well his mind was made up. There was no other course.

Huntington took up a quill, inspected the nib to judge if it would take ink properly, then dipped it in the pot. He pulled a sheet of parchment to him and proceeded to write out two names:
Mortain,
and
Brittany.
Both princes; one the son of a king, the other a grandson of the same sovereign.

One of them would be king. The other would likely be killed.

Arthur of Brittany was a boy, an unknown entity. John, Count of Mortain, was a man grown and very much known. But nothing about him recommended him to most of England’s barons as fit to hold the throne.

His hand shook so hard the ink spilled from the nib. His fine letters were spoiled by the resulting blots. He hissed displeasure between his teeth, until he heard the latch lifted and the door pushed open. His son stood in it.

“Robert,” he said in surprise.

“Meddling,” Robert eyed the parchment and trembling quill, “will be the death of you. You’ll die abed one night of a surfeit of frenzied plotting, or be executed for it.”

He set the quill down sharply. “These things must be
done,
Robert!”

“Let someone else do them.”

“I have given my life to this realm—”

He was overridden. “Let others do so.”

It was preposterous that his son should speak so. “You went on Crusade, Robert. Surely you must know what it means to dedicate oneself to a cause one believes in.”

“That,” Robert said, “was escape.”

“Escape!”

“From you.” He hitched a single shoulder briefly and leaned casually against the jamb, as if what they discussed was a matter of whether to hunt boar or deer. “Oh, I did hope there would be glory of it, and the chance to ride with King Richard was enough to feed a starving man’s soul, but mostly I went because I could not bear to be beneath your roof anymore.”

The earl’s head jerked up stiffly. “Is this your idea of kindness to a sick man?”

The smile was excessively dry, as was the tone. “You have never wanted kindness, my lord father, ill or well. All you ever demanded was obedience.”

“So a son
should
obey!”

“And a son
shall
obey, so long as his heart does not see a better way.”